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Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

mashable.com

41–50 of 103 posts

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#41

If Gmail reads private emails to target ads [1], why would people think that Facebook isn't doing the same thing? Also many companies (including Facebook) have agreed to share hashes and cooperate to "remove extremist content from their websites" [2]. It would be naive to think that they are excluding private messages from their searches. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/15/gmail-sca... [2] http://…

WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption. That's why Facebook with WhatsApp cannot do the same as Google does with Gmail. If they do, then their E2E encryption is fucked up.

Whatsapp is from whatsapp inc, founded by two former yahoo emplyees, then facebook bought for 19 billions dollar. Very different from "being from facebook".

You can probably trust whatsapp end to end encryption as much as you can trust facebook to protect your privacy [1][2].

[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/13/whatsapp-security-make-thi... [2]: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israeli-firm-allegedly-selling-spy-...

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#42
post #2

This article is so poorly written that I couldn't tell which version was the original and which the revised (or whether there were one or two revisions) until I'd read it three or four times. After I'd figured that out (I think), I had to go back again to understand what point the author was trying to make. Then again, it's just Mashable. I don't know why I worked at it so hard.

I was also confused similarly, more so with the headline that sounded as if this was a malicious move meant to hide the intent to monitor private messages (not that I would put it past Facebook not to do such horrific things).

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption. That's why Facebook with WhatsApp cannot do the same as Google does with Gmail. If they do, then their E2E encryption is fucked up.

Going on a tangent. I don't like Facebook as a company due to its policies. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if one of these days the WhatsApp end-to-end encryption is "discovered" as broken, followed by a quick scramble to explain it was a temporary glitch and that they found it quickly and closed it. It would just make the headlines for a day or two and then be forgotten. Most people using WhatsApp never cared…

Hasn't that already happened a couple times ? (except they not pretended to a temporary glitch and fixed it, they just went and said this is not a security flaw, this is a feature!).

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption. That's why Facebook with WhatsApp cannot do the same as Google does with Gmail. If they do, then their E2E encryption is fucked up.

That's WhatsApp, but I doubt it applies to Facebook Messenger.

I've always assumed my Facebook Messenger (and other private messages) were being monitored or otherwise datamined.

Corporate surveillance, with the intention of advertising to me no doubt, or selling what they can learn about me to advertisers.

I also assume any text messaging over Facebook Messenger can be used against me in a court of law. I don't imagine it's encrypted whatsoever.

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#45
post #5

How could anyone not know that your private messages represent valuable data to Facebook that they're going to use for ad revenue and service improvement? Your messages are not private on any service that doesn't guarantee privacy. Most services do not. Heck, your use of an app is often recorded and saved. Using these services and presuming to be in private is foolish. People other than Facebook don't respect the pri…

You don't need to trust Facebook to see inconsistencies in their message. WhatsApp is one of Facebook's "private channels" that it's said to implement the Signal protocol, which is supposed to offer end-to-end encryption. If we assume all what Facebook claims is true, the only way to analyze WhatsApp messages for AI purposes is to leak data to Facebook servers before starting the E2E encrypted connection. But that wo…

My pessimistic guess is that end-to-end encryption will be removed from WhatsApp, Allo, etc., in a matter of time with flowery language like, "...to provide the best possible experience that our users expect and deserve, and to empower our users with choice, we're switching the default (to quick plaintext communications)...the communication will still be secure through encryption on the network from client to server to client."

Then it'll become like Messenger, where end-to-end encryption is an explicit choice (similar to Secret Chats in Telegram). Not that people using WhatsApp would really care. The stickiness factor is quite high.

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#46
> So the trending news section went from left leaning legitimate news stories under human editors to a bunch of spam.

Geex, let me guess. You are left leaning too! People like me think mainstream media promotes the most fake news.

So it's dangerous to censor any news, being that Truth is a hot topic these days.

Disagree? I have plenty of evidence...

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487334551064.jpg

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487334952201.png

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487335558586.png

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487336058867.png

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487336641521.jpg

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487336663207.jpg

http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1487336681334.jpg

But sure, keep supporting the censors so we keep getting more divided. I don't mind, the right wing is getting most of generation z, and more and more people see the lies as what they are by MSM - FAKE NEWS!

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#47

If Gmail reads private emails to target ads [1], why would people think that Facebook isn't doing the same thing? Also many companies (including Facebook) have agreed to share hashes and cooperate to "remove extremist content from their websites" [2]. It would be naive to think that they are excluding private messages from their searches. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/15/gmail-sca... [2] http://…

WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption. That's why Facebook with WhatsApp cannot do the same as Google does with Gmail. If they do, then their E2E encryption is fucked up.

> WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption

You have no way to know what is actually running on their servers.

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#48
post #7

If Gmail reads private emails to target ads [1], why would people think that Facebook isn't doing the same thing? Also many companies (including Facebook) have agreed to share hashes and cooperate to "remove extremist content from their websites" [2]. It would be naive to think that they are excluding private messages from their searches. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/15/gmail-sca... [2] http://…

I forgot that google did that, but facebook was just in your face with it. I was talking to a friend on facebook about some ice climbing and if it was ok for a beginner, and very shortly after I saw ads on my facebook for ice climbing lessons. With google the worst I see if I search for something sometimes I see ads for those.

Not to mention, with google I actually get something out of it. Instant search for my flight info (even my Google home knows about it) is still my favorite thing.

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#49

If Gmail reads private emails to target ads [1], why would people think that Facebook isn't doing the same thing? Also many companies (including Facebook) have agreed to share hashes and cooperate to "remove extremist content from their websites" [2]. It would be naive to think that they are excluding private messages from their searches. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/15/gmail-sca... [2] http://…

WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption. That's why Facebook with WhatsApp cannot do the same as Google does with Gmail. If they do, then their E2E encryption is fucked up.

Well, Whatsapp does have an app on your phone that can read your decrypted messages

Re: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his manifesto

#50
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an easy to prove that they do read private messages. Send a private message with a link that points to your private website. Wait a few minutes and you should see in your server's logs that Facebook's bot is trying to crawl that url.

True, but they also show a preview of the page in the message, which would require fetching it. Pretty much every messaging service does that now. Also, there are legitimate reasons to scan URLs (malware, for example). Again, not trying to defend Facebook or absolve them of violating privacy, just saying that for these specific criticisms, there are technical explanations.

If you're scanning the URL for malware, why wouldn't you pick up some data mining info for the involved users while at it?
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